Text Messaging Fell Last Year as Modern Ways of Exchanging Words Exploded

The rise of Wi-Fi and 3G data messaging services like WhatsApp, Snapchat and Google badgering everyone into using Hangouts has contributed to a fall in UK text messaging, with 2013 seeing UK text numbers drop for the first time since the SMS system arrived.

However, the text message is far from being dead yet. Last year, 145 billion of them are estimated to have been sent within the UK, a drop of seven billion from the previous year. So it's down, but still the main way we communicate minor traffic, rail and dinnertime delays to people we can't be bothered calling. [Guardian]